


need someone (to numb the pain)

by charizona



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, basically they're ex girlfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 13:11:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1859271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charizona/pseuds/charizona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosima broke up with Delphine and they dated through undergrad. A few months later, they're both still head over heels, but in different ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	need someone (to numb the pain)

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, this fic is strongly inspired by the following songs:
> 
> Stay High by Tove Lo feat. Hippie Sabotage  
> Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High by Arctic Monkeys  
> Untouched by The Veronicas
> 
> Listen to these songs while you read. P l e a s e.

1.

Headaches were never your thing. Sure, you got the vomiting and the munchies but the skull cracking ache in your noggin was never part of the deal. Ever since you started smoking at the age of thirteen in your themed bedroom, you never had headaches. Slowly, as you curl up tighter in the blankets spread on your couch, you are beginning to realize that the combination of booze and grass didn’t mix as well as you had wanted.

You groan, flip over to grab your phone from the nightstand.

No new messages. You squint. “Shit,” you breathe, as you scroll through the _sent_ folder and see the chaos of your demise. A groan tumbles deep inside of your chest and you feel the tickle catch. It’s like a trigger, the way you cough, easy to pull, the consequences unknown. This time, though, it’s only a small break in the silence of the hazy apartment.

On the other side of the couch, her legs tangled with yours, Sarah jolts awake and you really hope you don’t look as bad as her.

“Put a lid on that,” Sarah groans, pressing her face into a pillow and stretching her limbs at the same time.

“Yeah,” you tell her, shifting into a sitting position, “I’m going to just lock this shit into a jar and put it on a shelf. Maybe stick on a label that says ‘not for Sarah Manning’.”

Fanged teeth grin from under the pillow and Sarah peeks at you. “You know I’d still get innit somehow.”

You scroll through your phone and ignore the sinking in your stomach. About twenty messages from you to a certain Delphine Cormier saying _you’re so pretty_ , saying _i’m sorry i was a bitch_ , saying _i don’t deserve you_. Nevermind the fact that you broke up with her months ago.

(Nevermind the fact

it wasn’t about her at all).

Delphine, the one that got away, the one you left in the dust, the one that became the tear stains in your pillow (the blood stains in your trash can).

“What If I never got high again,” you suggest to Sarah, whose toe pokes you in the knee.

“Yeah fuckin’ right.”

 

2.

It’s a few weeks later and this is your first taste of alcohol since that night. The red cup in your hand is so high school, but it’s college, man, time to party it up and shit. Or at least that’s what Tony tells you when he shows up at your doorstep ready to drag you to some anonymous college party. You don’t want to think that you’re too old for this, but… you’re too old for this. You have your thesis to think about. Partying was for undergrad and undergrad was for-

Delphine?

You gaze into the crowd where that rush of blonde hair had just been. Tony comes into view before you can think anything of it and grabs your hands. “Body shots!” he says and tugs you into the corner and the entire time you’re looking over your shoulder trying to catch another glimpse of who you’ve convinced yourself is your ex.

One shot turns into two, turns into five, turns into you licking clear alcohol of off some girl’s stomach and when you find yourself alone, finally, you drag your phone out.

Takes a few times for you to dial the right number. You call Alison, twice, and she is not very happy to hear your slurred voice in the middle of the night. And you are not quick enough to hit the end button.

Finally, it takes. You leave about five messages.

“Oh shit, Delphine,” you say in the first one.

In the second, you’re giggling, “I think I saw you tonight.”

“I miss you so much. I’m sorry. We should start over. En-shant-tay.”

“Mm, wrong number.”

“Joking. Totally joking. Thought I called Alison again for a second. I just. I really want to kiss you.”

You call a sixth time and the line picks up. You hold your breath and your heart speeds up. “Delphine?” you say. “If you’re there… I wanted to say that I totally still think that you’re amazing, that I made a mistake.” The alcohol is bitter on your tongue as you take a sip of beer, oblivious to the fact that you’re making a huge mistake. Probably.

“Cosima,” Delphine says and a small part of you is thinking that you miss the way your name sounds in her mouth, shaped by the accent and those lips. _Co-si-ma_. Another part of you is hungry. (For her). “You won’t remember this in the morning,” she sighs and you can practically imagine her gaze flickering down and a hand flitting to her brow, rubbing away a crease. “Please, just be safe.”

“I’m serious,” you croak. “I’m, like, crazy seriously in love with you.” No, never headaches, but always honesty.

“Then do something about it,” Delphine snaps and the line goes dead.

 

3.

Dragging your feet up her stairs, landing them on her welcome mat. You’d picked it out for her, months ago. The old one used to say _bienvenue_ and this one is just brown without a word at all. At some point, stumbling from the raging house party, you’d lit up and now, the blunt dangling loosely from your lips, you rap on her door, on her wood, and see her face when it opens.

She’s not expecting you, that much is obvious.

“I walked down the street with this thing,” you tell her, gesturing wildly toward the smoke billowing from your lips. “I could’ve gotten arrested. For you.”

Delphine has not even unlocked the chain. She shakes her head, minutely. “Go home, Cosima.”

She moves to shut the door and you wedge a boot into the opening, catching it. She glares and you remember that expression fondly. It isn’t fueled by hatred, just frustration. Like when you’d keep her from her studies. Or when you were kind of always late, kind of always sorry. Loads of times.

“I lost my keys,” you lie, giving your impaired brain a mental high five. Honestly, you’re not as intoxicated as you were, but Completely Sober Cosima would not be here. “So I kinda… can’t.”

She can tell, too, but she still lets you in. Grabs you roughly by the arm and leaves you to stand in the middle of her living room while she gathers a large handful of blankets. She releases them onto the couch and waves an arm. “You can sleep here for the night. I’m not going to let you get yourself killed.”

The blankets smell like her. The way yours did for weeks after it was over.

You fall asleep smelling like Delphine and pretending that she’s not in the other room, just a wall away.

 

4.

You sit with a bowl of Cheerios in her kitchen.

She sits with a bowl of Cheerios across from you.

Your voice cracks. “I meant it, you know.”

You don’t have to tell her that you remember everything. She knows. You can tell that she does, it’s easy to see in her eyes. She looks into her cereal and takes another bite, chews slowly. “Yes, I know.”

“So…” You start, judging her. “What now?”

She seems to almost sink into her chair. “I meant it, too.”

 

5.

You stay sober for a while. Delphine’s calls go unanswered, texts unchecked.

 

6.

Months ago, you were sitting in an office. White, barren, shelves littered with medical texts and frames with the original pictures still in them. It was sad, at the time, the way your doctor stared at you over prescription frames. He held up a paper in front of his nose and you were going to be late to class, if he didn’t hurry up. You’d told him this. Not to be rude or anything, but this class is for my degree. Kind of need to hurry a little bit.

And he’d looked sad.

You’d wondered why, at the time. A few moments later, you’d found out.

Learned that you didn’t have enough time to finish your degree. That the blood you’d been coughing up for a few days was because of polyps in your uterus, spreading to other parts of your body. Killer polyps going on a psycho rage inside of you.

You’d missed your class.

 

7.

Months ago, you’d cried more when you let Delphine go than when you heard that you were going to die in two years. She’d came to your apartment to surprise you when you got back from class, but you hadn’t gone to class in the first place, so she found you there, at the counter. You’d lashed out at her and screamed at her and your nose grew snotty and your words became venom and poison flowed freely through her veins. Tears didn’t prick at her eyes when you sliced into her and she held her ground. Stalked out when you put the icing on the cake.

It was better if she left thinking you were fucked in the head anyway.

Because you’re going to die. And yeah, everybody dies, but she shouldn’t go through that. Through losing you.

 

8.

You sit through treatments and pretend that you’re somewhere, someone else.

 

9.

Sitting at your counter and drinking coffee, your phone buzzes. You stare at the contact marker, at her name, and still, you don't know what to say to her. The story remains the same; nothing has changed now that she misses you, too. Nothing has changed because you're still dying and she still won't want any part in that.

It's easier for you to refuse to give that part of yourself over to her and have her hate you, rather than giving in and having your heart crumble between her fingertips.

Better for the both of you (you tell yourself, over and over and).

Someone knocks at your door and later, a part of you will wish you'd checked the peephole.

When you attempt to shut the door on her, the second hazel eyes meet green ones, she pulls the same shit you pulled weeks before, shoving her foot between the door and the frame. You can taste blood on your lips, your insides are rusting and you desperately hope that it's not that obvious. That your oversized sweater doesn't look _too_ big on your small (and getting smaller) frame. That she doesn't notice your glasses don't fit all that well anymore.

"What are you doing here," you ask after a moment before she pushes into your apartment, fuming past you, bottling up whatever rage she has in favor of just glaring at you.

"No," she argues a second later, jabbing a finger into the foot of space between you. "You don't get to be a bitch. Not when you've been begging for me back in every way possible. Not when I said it ba -"

You kiss her and she tastes so, so familiar. She molds against you like she never left, long fingers curling around your ribs and she breathes you in, breathes for you, and your lungs ache for it. You want her like you want thin tendrils of smoke in the air above you, but you had quit both months ago (no, you’d just quit her). Kissing her, you get a little bit of both. She tastes like nicotine, menthol lips pushing against yours and a tongue licking the roof of your mouth.

You kiss her and she kisses back, steps into your space and you’re on your toes, literally and figuratively, waiting for her to do something, _anything_. Her teeth graze and you remember this, how easy it used to be, how you practically melted into her every time.

You kiss her and she pushes, testing, until you stumble back and into a wall. Your back hits it hard and you feel a tickle in your chest. You bottle it up and throw it very, very far away because right now, she’s kissing you and that’s all that matters.

“I’m sorry,” mumbled against her lips and she nods. Sorry for getting sick, sorry for leaving, leaving.

Leaving. Running.

“I’m sorry,” you say again and Delphine counters with, “Je t’aime, Cosima. So very much.”

There’s that twinge again as her forehead falls against yours. It’s telling you that this was a mistake, that this will be regretted more in the morning than a bottle of whiskey, that this will end horribly. So you kiss her, throw your arms around her neck, and with her hands on your hips, you stumble toward the bedroom, clothes tugged insistently from skin.

Delphine hovers over you and looking into her eyes, hazel on fire from the light of the lamp, it occurs to you that you should’ve said it back. “I love you,” you whisper and her expression doesn’t change. She kisses you, rolls her hips, and you slide a hand between the two of you, between lace and soft curls. You push inside of her and she stops kissing, is only breathing onto your neck as your fingers curl.

She shifts and suddenly her hand is snaking it’s way next to yours, wrists tapping briefly and a small exhale comes from your throat when she’s inside of you.

Her fingers arc and your fingers delve into her and you both climb at the same pace, slowly edging your way to release. Movements grow faster and her teeth nip at the base of your neck, your free hand tangling it’s way into her tangled curls. She bucks against you and your hips jerk off the bed and she mutters unintelligible french into your skin. You come with the scented lilac of her hair in your face and she comes with your name on her lips.

She extracts her fingers gingerly, careful not to lay on you fully and your hand reclaims mobility as well, as you ignore the slight cramp in your wrist and you smile, genuinely, for the first time in months.

She doesn’t see it. She rolls over and curls against you like no time has passed, like you didn’t break up with her, like nothing has changed.

But everything has. “I’m sick, Delphine,” said into the humidity of the room. She traces freckles on your skin, the tips of her fingers summoning small goosebumps in their wake. The words feel like spilled wine, red staining the space between them, red wine, red blood.

You cough, the tickle in your chest finally catching. She kisses the hollow of your throat and she doesn’t say a word, doesn’t need to.

But you need her to.

**Author's Note:**

> "can't go home alone again  
> need someone to numb the pain
> 
> you're gone and i gotta stay high  
> all the time"
> 
> \-- "Stay High," Tove Lo feat. Hippie Sabotage
> 
> "now it's three in the morning and i'm trying to change your mind  
> left you multiple missed calls and to my message you reply,  
> 'why'd you only call me when you're high?'"
> 
> \-- "Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High," Arctic Monkeys
> 
> "i feel so untouched  
> and i want you so much  
> that i just can't resist you  
> it's not enough to say that i miss you
> 
> i feel so untouched right now  
> need you so much somehow  
> i can't forget you  
> been going crazy from the moment i met you"
> 
> \-- "Untouched," The Veronicas
> 
> Comments and kudos are extremely appreciated! Especially if your comment tells me how I did, because I'm not really sure about this one, mainly because I tried a lot of new things. Thanks for reading!


End file.
